Stress Center Peer Support

Hello Everyone,
I would like to share part of an article from the "Panic Away" program that I ordered a few months back by Joe Barry!!!

Here is the article!!!! I pray it helped each and every single one of you!!!

As explained in Stage 1, panic attacks can initiate a period of general anxiety. This

66



is understandable because the panic attack causes such confusion and fear, not just
in the moment of panic, but also for days after it has passed. This state of
confusion is ripe breeding ground for generalized anxiety disorder to develop. Note
that some people who never experience panic attacks can still develop generalized
anxiety from a prolonged period of exhaustion and sensitization.

Exhaustion = Sensitization = Panic Attacks/GAD

If we create a scale of anxiety from 1 to 10, a full-blown panic attack would register
at 9 or 10 and total, blissful relaxation would be around 1.


In a typical day, the average person in a metropolitan area might have a
stress/anxiety rating of somewhere between 3 and 4. In comparison, people who
experience GAD would be in the 5 to 8 range. When a panic attacks occurs, a
person might shoot to the top of the scale (9 or 10) and return afterward to the
GAD level of 5 to 8. The goal of Stage 2 is to get GAD and panic attack sufferers
alike back down the scale to a normal, everyday stress level, somewhere in the 2 to
4 range. This is done through released calm.

People who find themselves floating around the high end of the scale deal with a
continuous sense of unease. It’s almost as if their bodies are stuck on a permanent

67



high setting of sensitization and anxiety. This constant anxiety makes them feel
jumpy, irritable, and physically unwell. The body becomes tense and
uncomfortable, and the mind becomes obsessed with anxious thoughts and
sensations. This permanent tension in the mind and body leads to troublesome
symptoms like these:

• Nausea
• Dizziness
• Exhaustion
• Vision problems
• Cramps
• Intrusive thoughts
• Feelings of unreality and depression
• Sleep disturbance
• Difficulty concentrating or mind going blank
See Stage 3 for a detailed discussion on anxiety symptoms.

If you’ve been diagnosed with general anxiety disorder, don’t convince yourself that
you have a clinical illness—you don’t. This disorder doesn’t mean that you have a
physical or mental illness. Your brain is fine, and your body is fine. You’re suffering
from a sensitized state. If I had editorial authority over what was printed in
textbook psychology, I would eliminate the use of the ominous term “disorder.” I
use it in my materials because most people are very familiar with it, but I find the
term misleading. It conjures up ideas of chaos and a total breakdown of mental
function. That’s not the case. GAD is a behavioral condition and can be reversed
easily by following a series of steps.

I’m going to show you the necessary steps to release a feeling of calm into your
body and mind. I call this released calm. Released calm creates a small window of
opportunity for you to rest and build a buffer zone between you and the anxiety. It
allows a calm space for nerves to rest and recuperate. This release of calm happens

68



in small stages throughout the day as you carry out the exercises. It will give your
nerves an opportunity to return to normal, ending the heightened, sensitized state
they’re in. It is very important for people who experience panic attacks to also use
the exercises below. Feeling a greater sense of calm is vital for recovery from all
anxiety related problems. Before I introduce the exercises, we need to first discuss
a necessary change in attitude.

In order to fully move out of a state of general anxiety, your attitude is
fundamental. Your ability to change your attitude will determine the speed and
effectiveness of recovery. You need to adopt an attitude of complete acceptance.

Anxiety is like a bubble that surrounds you. When you’re in that bubble of fear,
your perception of things change and you feel your world getting smaller. This
bubble might make you feel disconnected from the world around you as you look
out at it through the bubble. The bubble of anxiety distorts everyday scenarios. To
dissolve the bubble, you first have to fully accept it and own it. Accept everything
this bubble of anxiety causes you to think and feel. Acknowledge that it’s all created
out of fear and that, for the present time, you’re not going to fight it or try to hide
from it.

You can start right now, as you read this, by simply sitting for a moment with your
anxiety. Gather together all the anxious sensations you feel, and say to them:

You’re mine. I created you. We’re in this together.

When you fully own the experience, it settles better with you, and you become less
agitated by it. This attitude is a fundamental first step. It’s a bit like wearing a
tight, uncomfortable coat—once you stop struggling with the tension, you can relax
and calm down more easily.

For the entire journey of healing your anxiety, always maintain that baseline
attitude of acceptance. Let it be the backbone of your healing. Give your anxiety

69



permission to manifest in whatever way it wishes. Allow your anxiety to move freely
while, at the same time, you take full ownership and responsibility for it.

For example, some describe anxiety like a blanket that smothers them. If you’ve
ever felt like that, embrace the anxiety and pull it close to you. Wrap yourself up in
that blanket. Sit with it around you. This type of unconditional acceptance feels
uncomfortable at first, but with practice, you’ll quickly see how acceptance really
makes a difference to your overall sense of control. You’re waving a white flag and
declaring a truce between you and your anxiety.

Before, you were tossing and turning with each and every sensation—but now,
you’re sitting in complete and absolute acceptance of it all, allowing the sensations
to do what they will. The tension was a result of trying to control the sensations,
but now that you have a greater understanding, you no longer need to struggle
with it.

Here’s another interesting way to imagine it. Your nerves are like a musical tuning
fork. One day, out of the blue, that tuning fork gets a bang—and your whole
system begins vibrating like crazy, creating wave after wave of nervous energy.
This nervous vibration scares the living daylights out of you. You do everything in
your power to stop the tuning fork from vibrating, but nothing works. What you
don’t realize is that each time you try to stop the vibrations, you actually give it
another whack, causing even more vibrations. You can see how a permanent state
of anxiety is caused by people continuously whacking the tuning fork (their nerves).
Each whack might be a series of thoughts like:

Am I losing my mind?
Why the heck won’t this ever stop?


Whack.

This is getting out of control. I don’t feel well at all. Maybe there really

70



is something wrong with me after all.

Whack-whack

As a result of the thoughts, your adrenaline pumps and acts as the hammer that
whacks your nerves again and again. You can clearly see how life becomes one
constant state of nervous energy.

Stage 2 of the Panic Away Program is about learning a different approach. Here
you’re taught to fully accept the sensations and say, “Vibrate away all you like.”
Before, you got really alarmed by this nervous feeling—but now you know what it
is, and you no longer try to shut it down. You fully accept the unusual vibrating
sensations, and you get on with your day regardless. The more you accept and
integrate the anxious sensations into your life, the faster they’ll disappear. They
disappear for one very simple reason: you no longer react with fear to the
sensations in your body.

After fully accepting the anxious sensations, you notice your anxiety level come
down a notch. Step by step, you see a real improvement. The driving force behind
the recovery is your attitude of acceptance. *

By the way, an attitude of acceptance is not “I accept what’s happening, and now
that I accept it, PLEASE STOP RIGHT NOW.”

Rather, it’s this:

I accept what I’m feeling today, and for all of today, I’m not going to
get upset or worried about it. I know all of this is a series of
sensations, and I’m not going to be drawn into a game of continually
fearing it. If the sensations stay, so be it. If they go—well, even better.

* The analogy of nervous energy vibrating is adopted from Dr. Weekes Hope and Help for Your Nerves.
71



I’m well aware that changing to an attitude of acceptance is easier said than done.
If you’ve been suffering from general anxiety for a prolonged period of time, it may
seem difficult to maintain an attitude of acceptance throughout the day, especially
if the anxiety is quite intense. The following exercises will help you make the
process easier. They’re separated into mental and physical exercises and are
designed to create moments of calm to relax your mind and body. The released
calm that’s generated reduces the sensitized feeling in your body, making it easier
to maintain an attitude of acceptance.

You can think of the these exercises as a toolbox of solutions that allow you to
make simple internal adjustments that will bring you back to feeling yourself again.
The exercises can be done separately, but for the greatest benefit, it’s best to
implement them all.

The exercises for eliminating general anxiety are as follows:

Mental Exercises

• Morning Pages
• Eliminating anxious thinking/intrusive thoughts
• Gratitude
Physical Exercises

• Breathing
• Diet
• Exercise
• The Symphony Technique
• Distraction
72



Mental Exercises:


A lot of people with generalized anxiety write to tell me how their anxiety makes
them feel cut off or removed from the world around them. This sensation can be
distressing, because people then fear that they’ll never be able to feel normal
again. This feeling is common and, in my experience, is caused by a cycle of
anxious thinking. People with anxiety disorders spend much of their day mentally
“checking in”—checking to see how their mind and body feel at any given moment:

Am I feeling okay?
How are my thoughts?
Am I feeling secure or on edge right now?


Regular “checking in” happens because anxiety has such a powerful effect on the
mind and body. Often people report that they can deal with the anxious bodily
sensations, but it’s the anxious mind that causes them the most distress.

Anxiety can make people feel like a thick fog has surrounded their minds. Nothing
really seems enjoyable as they look out at the world through this haze of anxious
thoughts and feelings. The fog steals the joy out of life, and it can make people feel
very cut off from everything.

The anxious thoughts act like a barrier to the world, and this sensation of
separation then causes people to feel even more upset because they feel they’re
losing touch with everyday reality. The following exercises demonstrate how to end
mental anxiety.

73



The Morning Pages

The first exercise I want to discuss for alleviating mental anxiety is taken from the
Artists Way by Julie Cameron. This hugely successfully book which has sold over
two million copies worldwide, is designed to show people how to tap into their
creative energies and become more creative in their daily life. Its philosophy is that
everyone has an innate ability to become an artist but because of mental blocks,
people miss the opportunity to express their creativity anywhere near its full
potential. The course outlines a very simple exercise that is done each morning
called the Morning Pages.

The Morning Pages exercise is designed to allow you to remove mental garbage
that is circling your mind and to free your mental process up for the day ahead.
Although the Artists Way course is specifically about creative expression, the
Morning Pages exercise is very effective in removing mental blockages and hence
can significantly reduce the anxious thoughts a person with general anxiety
experiences daily. It is an excellent exercise to begin each day with.

You need to set aside 30 minutes of this exercise. Plan to wake a little earlier each
morning so that you will not be disturbed and have time to complete the exercise.
30 minutes may initially seem like a big commitment but if getting up a bit earlier
makes a considerable difference to how you feel, might it not be the most
important 30 minutes of your day?

Find a table where you can sit alone with pen and paper. The paper can be sheets
of paper, or it can be a spiral notebook.

Begin by writing the first thing that comes into your mind down on paper.

Your writing does not have to be grammatically correct and do not worry about
style or presentation. The goal is allow yourself to flood these pages with whatever
is on your mind. You will not be sharing this with anyone nor will you be reading it

74



again yourself so do concern yourself with the content.

You might begin with:

I am not sure what I should write..ok here goes, I feel a little hungry. I wish I slept
a little better last night. Have to go to work now. I wish I had spoken up at that
meeting when I had the chance, etc....

The goal of the exercise is to just keep writing until you have written three pages.
As I said, if you cannot think of anything to write, simply write “I have nothing to
write about”. Once you are finished put the writing away somewhere private until
the next morning. Note, this is not a diary, do not look over your writing or share
the writing with anyone else. It is a space for you to freely write anything at all that
is on your mind. It may be very insightful, poetic; it may be gibberish, that doesn’t
matter. The goal is not to analyse what you write but to simply create a flow of
expression onto paper. When you allow this flow to happen you release blockages
of mental energy and that will have a very positive effect on the rest of your day.

I suggest you do it with pen and paper rather than on a computer as it is more
cathartic on paper and some people feel uncomfortable staring at a computer first
thing in the morning. This exercise must be done daily for several weeks in order to
fully appreciate the difference it makes in your life. You may soon reach a point
where you notice days where you have forgotten to do it and how much better you
actually feel when you do practise it. Think of it as a daily mind cleanse.

When you practise this exercise you will discover that you can begin each day with
greater mental clarity. Your thoughts feel more organized and your ability to focus
on the world around you and not what is happening in your own mind is
strengthened. Regular practise will enable you to live more in the present and less
in your own thoughts. This really is a very powerful tool and if you want to learn
more about this approach and how to free up your creative energies, I highly
recommend you read the book The Artists Way.

75



Make a firm commitment now to begin each day with the Morning Pages exercise.
Think of it as building a solid foundation onto which you will be adding more
exercises to fully eliminate the anxiety you feel. Next we are going to look at
ending unwanted anxious thoughts.

Unwanted Anxious Thoughts

People who experience anxiety and panic attacks frequently have to deal with the
negative side effects of unwanted anxious thoughts. These thoughts can range from
worries about health, concern over loved ones, or even fears that don’t make any
rational sense at all but continue to linger in the mind. Sometimes, unwanted
anxious thoughts come from previous experiences; other times, they’re simply
bizarre, leaving people worried as to why such strange thoughts occur. In all of
these cases, people are upset because the anxious thoughts cause distress and
worry. Over the next few pages, I’ll guide you through a simple two-step process
that’s specifically tailored to deal with anxious thinking.

To effectively tackle anxious thinking, you need a two-pronged approach. To
eliminate negative thoughts, you need a shift in attitude in combination with
specific visualization tools.


The Attitude of Acceptance

76



It’s not the anxious thought itself that causes you distress. It’s how you respond to
that thought. It’s your reaction to the thought that enables the thought to have
influence and power over you. To better understand how unwanted thoughts come
about, it helps to paint a playful visual picture of how this happens. This example
will help you better understand how to deal with the issue.

Imagine yourself standing on a street, and all around you, thoughts are lazily
floating by. Some of the thoughts are your own, and other thoughts are from
outside sources you access, such as newspapers, TV, magazines, etc. You notice
that when you pay attention to a thought, it gravitates nearer. The thoughts you
ignore float on by.

When you focus on and closely examine a thought, you notice how it connects to
another similar thought, and you find yourself jumping from one thought to the
next. Sometimes these are practical, day-to-day thoughts—such as bills, chores,
etc.—or they can have themes of the past or be fantasies/daydreams.

In our imagined scenario, you unexpectedly notice a thought that hovers in front of
you and scares you. This thought is called “Fear X.” X could be panic attacks, ill
health, or something bizarre. In a sensitized state, you find it impossible not to look
at the thought, and as you give it your full attention, this causes it to come closer
and closer. When you examine the thought, you begin to react with fear because
you don’t like what you see. You further notice how that initial scary thought is
connected to more worrisome “what if” thoughts that you also examine in detail.
The more you try to escape from the thought by pushing it away, the more it
seems to follow you around as if it were stuck to you. You try to focus on more
pleasant thoughts, but you find yourself continuously coming back to the fearful
thought.

Have you ever heard the expression “thoughts sticking like glue”? The very act of
reacting emotionally to the thought glues it to you all the more, and the more you

77



worry and obsess about the thought, the more that glue becomes hardened over
time. The thought—and all of its associated thoughts—are there in the morning
when you wake up and at night when you try to get some sleep. The thought
becomes stuck to your psyche because your emotional reaction is its sticking
power. Thoughts are a form of energy, and they’re neither good nor bad. How we
judge those thoughts determines how much impact they have on our lives.
Thoughts first need to be fed by attention, but what they really love is a good,
strong emotional reaction to make them stick!

People in sensitized states might literally jump at the very idea of a certain thought
and chastise themselves over and over for ever having the thought in the first
place. Have you ever noticed that when you’re mentally exhausted, thoughts can
almost grate away at you, how an annoying pop song won’t leave your head or a
silly concern changes from a minor niggle to an unbearable stress? Mental
exhaustion is a major contributor to repetitive anxious thoughts, just like a CD
track looping again and again.

Most anxious thoughts are attracted to us by the attention we pay them, and they
then stick firmly in place by our level of emotional reaction to them. This is an
important point. A thought can have an influence over you only if you allow it to.
Your emotional reaction is a thought’s energy source. What’s interesting is that
either a positive or a negative emotional reaction is fine for the thought. Energy
and attention are what attracts it. Once you have an emotional reaction to a
thought, you’re regularly drawn to that thought until the emotional reaction has lost
its energy and faded away.

For example, if someone you know pays you a very positive compliment, you may
find yourself unintentionally drawn to that thought any time you have a spare
moment. You probably find that it improves your overall level of confidence and
mood throughout the day. Sadly, however, we tend to focus less on the positive
and more on the negative. We seem to forget those positive compliments all too
easily, and we’re more frequently drawn to what might upset us. Take the opposite

78



example: if someone you know insults you, I’m sure that you find the emotional
reaction to that thought much more intense and probably very long-lasting.

So the basic pattern of thinking is this. If you’re not engaged in an activity or task,
your mind tends to wander toward any thoughts to which you have a strong
emotional reaction. In general, angry or fearful thoughts seem to surface quickly
because they’re the ones to which you probably react most strongly.

What I suggest is that the most effective way to eliminate unwanted thoughts is to
stop trying to suppress them. Thought suppression studies have proven that the
very act of trying to suppress a thought results only in a higher frequency of the
unwanted thought occurring.† This has been termed the “rebound effect.” Simply
put, the more you try to suppress a thought, the more the unwanted thought keeps
popping up (rebounding).

So how do we begin to tackle this problem of unwanted thoughts?

You need a change of attitude. By a change in attitude, I mean a change in the way
you react to the thoughts. This goes back to the idea of acceptance mentioned
earlier. An attitude of acceptance quickly disarms the emotional reaction you have
to the fearful thoughts. Once the emotional reaction has been significantly reduced,
the unwanted anxious thoughts dissipate. In the past, you’ve probably tried to rid
yourself of the thoughts by attempting to struggle free of them. The trick, however,
is not to try to be free of them, but to accept them as they run through your mind.

We can never fully control what goes through our minds, but we can
control how we react to what goes on there. That’s the key difference between
someone who gets caught up in fearful thinking and someone who does not.

The thoughts that terrify us aren’t fueled by some unknown force; they are our

† Wegner, D. M., Schneider, D. J., Carter, S., III, & White, L. (1987). Paradoxical effects of thought suppression.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 409–418.
79



own. We empower them and, equally, we dismiss them. When you have an
uncomfortable thought you’d rather not be thinking, your first reaction is usually to
tense up internally and say to yourself, “Oh no, I don’t like that idea. I don’t want
that thought right now.” The very act of trying to push the thought away, and then
understandably getting upset when that doesn’t work, causes the thought to
become more stuck to your psyche.

It’s like saying to your mind over and over again, “Whatever you do, don’t think of
pink elephants.” Guess what? You can’t get in a single thought that’s not related to
pink elephants.

As long as you struggle with the thought, your mind, like a bold child, keeps
returning to it. This is not to say that your mind is maliciously working against you.
It’s better to compare the mind to a radar scanner that picks up on thoughts with
high levels of emotional reaction connected to them.

To not react emotionally, learn to disempower the thought’s “fear factor” by
accepting it and gently moving your attention back to what you were doing. Don’t
hide from or push away the anxious thoughts.

So take this example. Let’s say you have fear “X” going on in your mind. That fear
can be virtually anything your mind might conceive. You know the thoughts aren’t a
realistic fear, and you want them to stop interrupting your life.

The next time the fearful thought comes to mind, don’t push it away. This is
important.

Tell yourself that that’s fine, that the thought can continue to play in your mind if it
wishes, but you’re not going to give it much notice—and you’re certainly not going
to qualify it by reacting with fear. You know in your heart that the thought is very
unlikely to happen. You have a deeper sense of trust, and you won’t be emotionally
tossed around all day by a thought. Say to yourself:

80



Well, that thought/fear is a possibility, but it’s very remote—so
whatever. Today I’m trusting that all is well.


You allow the thought to have its moment of attention. You don’t react to
it, but simply move your attention back to where you really want to focus.

What’s of key importance is not to get upset by the thoughts and feelings as they
arise. Here’s a tip for how to do that:

•
To avoid any fearful emotional reaction to the thought, give the fear some
cartoon characteristics.
•
Imagine, for example, it’s Donald Duck telling you, “Something awful is going
to happen. Aren’t you scared?”
•
Give the character a squeaky voice, and make it a totally ridiculous scene.
How can you take an anxious duck with big feet seriously? This use of
cartoon imagery reprograms your initial emotional reaction to the thought
and eliminates any authority the thought may have over you.
•
As the thought rambles on about all the scary things it wants to share with
you, watch it getting smaller and smaller until . . . “pop,” it disappears. When
that’s done, move your attention back to whatever you were doing.
Remember, you don’t try to force the thought away because you don’t like it.
You simply accept it and then make it inconsequential as you turn your
attention to other things.
This takes practice in the beginning, but what happens is that, during the day, you
find yourself checking in on how you feel less and less. Because the anxious
thought doesn’t have a strong fearful emotion connected to it, your mind isn’t
drawn to it. To put it another way, the thought becomes unstuck and fades away

81



because the emotional reaction has been neutralized. In fact, that’s the first step
toward moving away from anxious thoughts—neutrality. Before, it was as if your
mental energy were spinning in a negative cycle while you were caught in the
anxious thoughts. Now, you are learning to stop the negative cycle and move into
neutral (see the next illustration).

From this new position of neutrality, you experience a much greater sense of clarity
because you’re away from the confusion of an overanxious mind. Moving into this
mindset of neutrality is your first step. Thoughts generally lead us in one direction
or another, either in a positive cycle (peace, sense of control and order) or a
negative cycle (anxiety, fear, disorder).

The next step is to adopt a relaxed, peaceful state of mind and move your energy
into a positive cycle of thinking as shown below.


Visualization Tool for Ending Anxious Thinking

Anxiety can cause an imbalance in your life whereby all of the mental worry creates
a top-heavy sensation. Your entire focus is moved from the center of your body to
your head.

Schools of meditation often demonstrate an example of this top-heavy imbalance

82



by showing how easily the body can lose its sense of center. A student is asked to
come to the front of the group and stand with his legs apart. The teacher then asks
him to focus on a personal worry or concern. Once the student is fixated on the
worry, the teacher quietly moves to the student’s side and tells him he’s going to
attempt to push over the student. The teacher pushes on the student’s shoulder
and topples the student with relative ease. The same student is then asked to
forget the worry and focus his attention in his body. The teacher once again tries to
topple the student, but he finds much more resistance than before. The student is
grounded firmly in place. This demonstration shows how important it is to feel
grounded and centered in the present moment awareness of your body and not be
continuously caught in mental activity.

I’m going to teach you two simple visualizations. The purpose of the visualizations
is to enable you to quickly clear mental stress and tension. Use them when you feel
your mind is racing with anxious thoughts.

The visualization process, when practiced frequently, is very effective for
eliminating deep-seated mental anxieties or intrusive thoughts. To gain maximum
benefit, carry out the exercises for longer than ten minutes at a time, as anything
shorter will not bring noticeable results. There’s no right or wrong way to conduct
the visualizations. Be intuitive, and don’t feel that you’re unable to do it if you’re
not very good at mental imagery. As long as your attention is on the exercise, you’ll
gain some benefit. It’s best to do this in a quiet place where you won’t be
disturbed. Then, when you’re more practiced, you’ll be able to get the same
positive results in a busier environment, such as the workplace. You should notice a
sensation of released calm in your mind and body after each visualization is
complete.

Okay, let’s begin.

83



1st Visualization to end unwanted anxious thoughts

Either sitting or standing, close your eyes and move your attention to your breath.
To become aware of your breathing, place one hand on your upper chest and the
other on your stomach. Take a breath, and let your stomach swell forward as you
breathe in and fall back gently as you breathe out. (See the breathing exercise for a
full understanding of this breathing technique.)

Continue the abdominal breathing for about five minutes.

Now move your attention to your feet. Try to really feel your feet. See if you can
feel each toe. Picture the base of your feet, and visualize roots slowly growing out
through your soles and down into the earth. The roots grow with a quickening pace
and reach deep into the soil of the earth. You’re now rooted firmly to the earth and
feel stable, like a large oak or redwood tree. Imagine what it would feel like if this
large tree were swaying gently in the wind. Stay with this feeling of grounded
safety and security for a few moments.

Once you’ve created a strong feeling or impression of being grounded like a tree,
visualize a cloud of bright light forming way above you. A bolt of lightning from the
luminous cloud hits the crown of your head, and that ignites a band of bright white
light that slowly descends from your head all the way down your body, over your
legs, and out past your toes. As the band of light passes over you, feel it clearing
your mental state. It illuminates your mind and clears any rubbish that you may
have been thinking about. Repeat this image four or five times until you feel a
sense of clearing and release through your feet.

In finishing, see yourself standing under a large, luminescent waterfall. The water is
radiant and bubbling with vitality and life. As you stand under the waterfall, feel the
water run over every inch of your body, soothing you and instilling within you a
sense of deep calm. Try to taste the water. Open your mouth and let the water run
in to refresh you. Hear the water as it bounces off the ground around you. The

84



water is life itself, and it’s washing away stress and worry from your mind and
body.

After a moment, open your eyes.

Try to use all of your senses when carrying out the visualization. To make the
pictures in your mind as real as possible, use your senses of touch, taste, and
hearing. Feel the water trickle down your body, hear the sound it makes as it
splashes over you.

2nd Visualization to end unwanted anxious thoughts

This visualization is for unwanted thoughts that are particularly persistent and
troublesome.

Begin by doing the abdominal breathing explained in the breathing exercise. Allow
yourself a few minutes to get a deep sustained level of breathing going.

As you breathe out, imagine your out breath as a blue cloud shimmering with a
positive radiant light. Repeat this visualization until you can picture this image well
in your minds eye.

The anxious thought that is troubling you will soon float into your awareness.
Imagine the anxious thought in your mind’s eye like a ball of yellow energy about
the size of a tennis ball. It comes in from the side floating two to three feet in front
of you. As you become aware of the disturbing thought try not to examine or judge
it but simply give it a label. Say the label to yourself:

Oh there is ‘fear of going mad’ ‘fear of an illness’ ‘fear of hurting myself’ , ‘fear of
hurting someone else’ ‘fear I might never feel normal again’ etc.

After giving the anxious thought a label, breathe out slowly and visualize your

85



breath enveloping the thought. The glowing cloud of positive radiant light now
surrounds and engulfs the smaller yellow thought. As the thought becomes
engulfed, internally say the words

“acceptance” and “peace.”

The yellow ball is engulfed in a radiant positive energy. It now starts to defuse in
the blue cloud and becomes harder to see. Keep breathing on the thought and
watch as the blue cloud carries the small yellow ball further and further away. As it
floats away the fear you had about the thought is also leaving you. Each time you
breathe out towards the thought you say

“acceptance” and “peace”

Eventually after a few breaths the thought has completely disappeared. Keep your
awareness on your breath. Continue to breathe deeply in and out.

The same fearful thought may soon return but this time it is much smaller and less
impacting. You feel much less intimidated by the thought this time because you
have already reduced your emotional reaction to it. You simply don’t really care
that much about it. You are disconnecting your emotions from the thought.

Continue this exercise for any number of other disturbing thoughts that arise,
always breathing “acceptance” and “peace” on them as they float away from your
awareness in the radiant blue cloud.

This is a good exercise to practise daily as it will strengthen your ability to
disconnect from anxious or highly disturbing thoughts. Soon you will be able to
quickly recognise and label a disturbing thought immediately and you will have no
emotional reaction to it whatsoever. The thought will be nothing more then a split
second flash on your awareness then it is gone as you move your attention to what
you really want to focus on. This does take practise and depending on the severity

86



of the anxious thoughts, it will take time to fully release the emotional reaction to
the anxious thoughts. The more you practise, the better you will become at it.


The more realistic the imagined scenarios, the more benefit you’ll gain. Many
people report very beneficial and soothing results from frequently using these
simple visualizations. The mind is much like a muscle; in order to relax, it needs to
regularly release what it’s holding. By visualizing the different situations, you allow
your mind to release tension and restore calm. It’s like sending a message to your
brain that when you close your eyes and begin this process, it’s time to let go of
anything that it’s been mentally holding onto.


I recommend that your daily visualization practice take place before going to bed,
as that will enable you to sleep more soundly. Many people do these visualizations
in some room other than the bedroom before going to bed. That way, when they
enter the bedroom and close the door, they leave the mental stress behind them.
Visualization, as a tool for dealing with mental stress and problems of exhaustion, is
very effective. If you do the above visualizations on a regular basis, you’ll
experience more and more released calm.


That concludes the two-pronged approach to dealing with anxious thoughts.
With practice you’ll find that you go days without having those anxious thoughts
interrupt your life—and, importantly, this significantly reduces the level of general
anxiety you feel.


Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Here I go again with the labels. When a person is very mentally exhausted, anxious
thoughts can develop into obsessions. This is known as obsessive compulsive
disorder, or OCD. It has two components: persistent anxious thoughts and
repetitive, unproductive behavior. This compulsion might be something like
constant hand washing or other such similar repetitive behavior.

87



There are different levels to OCD. Some people have a very mild form, which might
be a compulsion to have everything perfectly in its place. Or it might be more
extreme forms, in which the person is very distraught most of the day, tormented
by anxious thoughts, and performs elaborate rituals to help ease the anxiety. The
rituals are a way for the person to feel in control. When the person carries out the
ritual, he feels some sense of ease—however, it’s a false sense of ease, because it
isn’t long before the ritual has to be carried out again. In the end, the person
becomes a slave to the ritual and the anxious thoughts.

If you think you might have an OCD, it’s important to understand that it’s highly
treatable and you can cure it. Accept that it’s going to take some time. You can
start to tackle compulsive behavior by slowly exposing yourself to the thing that
causes the behavior while not engaging in the associated ritual. In the case of hand
washing, you might allow a bit of dirt to stay on your hands without running
immediately to wash it off. This is called exposure therapy, and it works well for
some compulsive behavior. When the person is less sensitized, the process
becomes much easier because the anxious thoughts have less impact on the
person’s psyche.

When there are persistent anxious thoughts, those thoughts can be of an extremely
disturbing nature. Typical examples might be parents’ fears that they would harm
their children in some manner (this is common for mothers who have recently given
birth). Thoughts like that would strike a bit of fear into a non-sensitized mind, but
when the person is in a nervous, sensitized state, the disturbing thought hits with
such severity that it rebounds hard and fast, causing great distress. I want to
reassure you that the disturbing thoughts (regardless of the severity) are not
something to worry about. They’re the result of an active imagination coupled with
sensitization and something you care deeply about. These thoughts persist because
you react so strongly to them. If you didn’t have a strong reaction, the thought
would never bother you.

You need to follow the two-pronged approach to dealing with anxious thoughts, as

88



outlined above. Accept that this is not the sign of mental illness, but simply
exhaustion. If you find your OCD too severe, seek the advice of a doctor and
psychologist. Sometimes a short course of medication, in combination with therapy,
can be the fastest route to get over what can feel like an insurmountable hurdle.

As a final point about OCD, don’t be too quick to stick a label on yourself. Believing
in a label like OCD can make a problem more solidified than it really is. Lots of
people go through what would be clinically termed as an obsessive compulsive
disorder without every really knowing they had it. To them, it was just a period
they went through. Labels do help to communicate ideas more easily, but often
these labels carry an unnecessary ominous weight. As mentioned, anxiety is almost
always accompanied by a level of anxious, disturbing thoughts, so if you experience
such thoughts, don’t feel you automatically have OCD.

Gratitude Exercise

When people are very caught up in anxious thoughts, they’re “top-heavy,” so to
speak. The constant mental activity they’re engaged in has caused an imbalance in
which all of their focus is on their mental anxieties. In my experience, one of the
fastest ways to move out of this anxious mental haze is to begin to move your
attention from your head to your heart. With practice, if you simply make a
deliberate shift of attention to your heart, you’ll find that the anxious thoughts
dissipate and the mental fog starts to clear.

Do this by practicing the art of gratitude.

I’m sure you’ve heard people speak about the art of gratitude and the benefits it
can bring to you. It’s been scientifically proven that regular mental practice of

89



gratitude can dramatically change your body’s chemistry, giving way to a more
peaceful body and mind.

The Heart Math Institute (www.heartmath.org) has fifteen years of scientific
research proving that a simple tool like the art of gratitude can dramatically reduce
stress and improve performance for individuals and organizations. Many Fortune
500 companies are starting to use this technique to reduce work-related stress.

I’m going to outline a gratitude exercise in a very straightforward manner so that
you can start practicing right now. When you practice this technique, you’ll feel a
greater sense of perspective on the anxiety that’s been troubling you. This
activation of your heart’s emotion will lift the heavy-fog sensation that anxious
thoughts create. This is a very simple technique, but it’s really powerful. You should
notice a difference within minutes.

Are you ready? Here’s the technique:

1. Close your eyes and move your attention to your heart area. Imagine a
feeling of warmth emanating from the center of your chest. Place your right
hand there. If you’re around people or driving, etc., simply imagine your
right hand resting on your heart area (and don’t close your eyes if you’re
driving!). Imagine this area glowing warmly, and stay with that image for
thirty to sixty seconds.
2. Now, begin to focus on something in your life for which you feel a genuine
sense of appreciation. This can be one or more things that you really
appreciate having in your life (e.g., family, health, friends, work, your
home).
3.
It’s important to focus on things that spark a real sense of gratitude and
appreciation. If you really appreciate the thing you’re thinking about, you’ll
immediately feel a response—possibly a light, warm sensation in your heart
90



area or an involuntary smile. You may even feel this right now as you think
about all the great things you have in your life. It doesn’t really matter what
you think about, as long as it evokes this feeling of warm appreciation from
your heart area. Everyone has something for which they can be grateful.
(Remember, the cemetery is full of people who would love to have your
problems!)

4. Don’t worry if you think of your partner or family and don’t feel this. Some
days it will be people close to you who spark the heart feeling, and other
days it may just be gratitude for the parking space you found or the hand of
cards you were dealt while playing poker the previous night! It depends on
the mood you’re in, so remember—it’s only the feeling that you’re after. The
feeling is unmistakable; it’s a positive change in your emotional state. It’s
really best to do this alone, because you want to stay with this feeling for as
long as you like.
5. When you feel you’ve taken it as far as you can, open your eyes.
There’s no time frame on this. It can take a minute to half an hour. Again, it’s
about establishing a heart-mind connection. Incorporate this exercise into your
daily routine:

• Do it first thing in the morning to start the day on the right note.
• Do it when you’re stuck in traffic.
• Do it sitting at your desk.
• Do it before you go to sleep at night.
Practice it again and again. Just like a muscle, your heart will get more accustomed
to this state, and you’ll be able to switch into it at a moment’s notice. This is such a
simple way to really feel more grounded and to lift the fog of anxious thoughts you
may experience.

91



You can also use this exercise in the middle of any stressful situation, and you’ll be
surprised at the outcome in terms of your own stress levels and the change in
reaction of others around you. For example, if you feel an outburst of anger, you
can quickly turn around the explosive situation by doing a split-second version of
this exercise.

Try it out, be creative with it, and make it your own daily ritual.

It’s my experience that most people don’t have the patience or time to make major
lifestyle changes. By using this one exercise, you can very easily make a dramatic
improvement to your life. The simplest exercises are often the most effective, and
this is one of those gems. Don’t pass it up.

Physical Exercises:
Breathing

Learning to breathe correctly is another profound way to bring about an immediate
shift in your anxiety level. Most people develop a bad habit of breathing in a
shallow manner. Shallow breathing can be a result of bad posture or, in some
cases, a traumatic emotional experience or physical pain. Practicing to improve this
takes only a few minutes a day, and it will result in a much better overall feeling of
calm and tranquility.

To find out if you’re a shallow breather, put your palms against your lower
abdomen (your stomach) and breathe out all the air.

Now, take a few breaths. If your abdomen expands when you inhale and air seems
to flow in deeply to the pit of your stomach, you’re breathing in a correct manner.
More typically, though, shallow breathers are likely to take a breath and pull in their

92



stomach, which pushes the diaphragm up and results in an upper-chest breath.
Here, the chest moves more than the stomach. What you want is a nice, regular
breath that expands the stomach more than the chest.

To achieve this, practice the following breathing exercise:

1.
Imagine that the air when you inhale fills up your stomach area, and feel
your stomach expand as you do so.
2. Allow your stomach muscles to expand. (This isn’t a time worry about your
waistline, so relax and let it all hang out!)
3. Breathe in through your nose to the count of four, hold for four seconds,
and breathe out through your mouth to the count of seven.
4.
Let out a loud sigh as you exhale. As you do so, imagine all the stress in your
body floating away from you.
5. Repeat this breathing pattern for approximately five to ten minutes.
If you feel anxious, this breathing exercise may seem a little uncomfortable. If it
does, you might want to slightly shorten the amount of time you breathe in and
out. The trick is to make the “out” breath longer than the “in” breath. As you get
more comfortable, you can lengthen that time.

Some imagine their body as a big, frozen block of ice. As they breathe in and out,
the ice starts melting, and the evaporating steam is their mental stress and bodily
tension drifting away. Try this and see

I pray that this helped each and every single one of you!!! God Bless All of you is my prayer!!

Reposting for those new to the forum!!!